LONDON, May 30 (Reuter) - Britain was locked in an angry war of words with the European Union on Thursday over beef, fish and baby milk but Finance Minister Kenneth Clarke said he hoped London's stalling tactics could end soon. Prime Minister John Major's new get-tough stance has won the backing of anti-EU Conservative politicians in Britain but has failed to pay dividends with voters he desperately needs to win the next general election, due within 12 months. An opinion poll published in The Times newspaper on Thursday showed just 26 percent satisfied with his performance. The Conservatives garnered only 27 percent against 54 percent for the opposition Labour Party. Rocky relations have plunged to a new low with the European Commission, the EU's executive body, accusing Major of taking hostages with his campaign to paralyse the 15-nation bloc's business until a ban on British beef is lifted in a crisis of consumer confidence over mad cow disease. Chancellor of the Exchequer Clarke, a leading pro-European in

Major's cabinet, said he hoped the non-cooperation tactic could end before next month's EU summit in Italy. "If we get absolutely no response from the other European countries, it's likely to go on indefinitely. I don't think this is likely," Clarke said in an interview with The Times. "The process of locking up all this legislation is going to concentrate minds," he said. EU Commission President Jacques Santer said Britain's stand was deplorable and counter-productive because other EU dossiers were being taken hostage as a result of it. A decision to cut fishing fleets by 40 percent was greeted with howls of protest. Lawmakers warned it would fuel anti-EU feeling in Britain, already stirred by jingoistic tabloids. Then the European Commission asked Britain speedily to provide information on testresults that showed leading brands of baby milk contain chemicals that could impair fertility. But Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind tried to dispel the storm clouds gathering in the growing confrontation between Lo

ndon and the EU headquarters in Brussels. He said Santer's comments were only to be expected given Britain's tactics. He denied that either the fishing cuts or the call for a report on baby milks was part of "Europe's revenge". Eurosceptics in Major's beleaguered government, which has a wafer-thin majority of just one in parliament, went swiftly into the attack against what they see as increasing encroachment by Brussels on Britain's national sovereignty. John Redwood, who sought to topple Major in a party leadership contest last July, said the prime minister should re-impose a 200-mile limit around Britain unless its fishermen are given a better deal. Attacking the announcement by the EU fisheries commissioner, Emma Bonino, he told BBC Radio on Thursday: "The current scheme is a madness and a hammer blow to our industry." Fellow Eurosceptic Teresa Gorman said: "Emma Bonino makes my blood boil. Every time I hear her I want to give her a slap round the ear with a wet herring." She was writing in the tabloid S

un, Britain's best-selling newspaper, which maintained its angry tone over Europe, saying in an editorial: "Make no mistake, this is war. We must not allow ourselves to be pushed around any more."